Time's Edge

“Is that it?” I ask Kiernan, my voice shaking.

“She runs past the stable point you set in front of the church. Saul is right on her heels.”

“Maybe she got away—”

“No.”

“You can’t know that for certain!”

“Yes, I can.” He leans over and wipes a tear from my cheek. I didn’t even know I was crying. He gets up from the couch and limps over to grab the box and the article from the table.

“I could have gotten that, you know. All you had to do was ask me.”

“Leg gets stiff if I stay in one place too long.” He sits next to me and removes the top of the box, pushing the CHRONOS diary up on its spine so that he can dig through the articles beneath it. Then he pulls out the article with the photograph taken from almost the same angle as the stable point I was just watching.

Even before I look down at the picture, I realize something is very wrong. When I was inside the chapel with Sister Elba, the view was so similar to the photo I’m holding that it gave me a touch of déjà vu. When I first pulled up the stable point, before Saul and Martha arrived, I had the same thought.

But the chapel I was watching just now was in disarray. A broken armonica case, shattered glass everywhere . . . In this photograph, the armonica case is still standing, its contents unbroken.

Kiernan places the second image in my lap, the one that had been outside the box on the table. In this version, the armonica is again in pieces on the floor. “The CHRONOS field from the diary shielded the one that you’re holding. I went back and picked up another copy the day the story broke in the local paper. If you read the text, you’ll see there’s another change.”

He taps the third paragraph down, and I read:

A shallow grave was found at the rear of the church, containing the body of a young woman who had been strangled, her body showing evidence of other assault.

The murdered girl appears to have died several days earlier. As no report of an attack was made to county law enforcement, she is assumed to have been assaulted and killed by a resident of the Six Bridges community.

The bodies found inside the church are assumed unrelated. Authorities stress that there is no evidence that the illness is in any way contagious.

“Martha.” I just sit there for a moment, staring at the two articles side by side, unsure what this means.

“She wasn’t supposed to die, Kate. Martha escaping was the mistake that Saul told Simon about. She has to be. It’s the only way this makes sense.”

I shake my head, still not sure what could have changed her fate. “Do you think we did something when we were there? Something that—”

“No,” he says. “I think it’s what we didn’t do. What I didn’t do.”

“So . . . you think we’re supposed to save her.”

He shrugs. “I don’t know what you’re supposed to do, Kate. I think the safest thing for you to do would be to stay here. But, yeah, I’m going.”

I lean back and rub my eyes, trying to think. What sort of ripple effects could this produce? Did knowing he made a mistake change Saul’s actions in any way? And if so, how did it change them?

“If you go, I go. We clearly have to set this straight. But we can’t kill him, Kiernan. As much as I really, really want to right now, and as hard as it’s going to be not to when I see him, we can’t. And he can’t know how she gets away.”

“I know,” he snaps. “I don’t need a lecture.”

“I wasn’t lecturing you. You don’t have to be a jerk about it.”

He’s silent for a good five seconds. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve been sitting here for the past four hours, going over this, examining it from every angle and watching that sick—”

“And that’s why I asked you to wait until I was here!”

“What did you expect me to do, Kate? Just sit here in this cabin, thinking of you back there with him?”

I clench my teeth to avoid saying anything I’ll regret, because this is really begi

“And I’ve been honest with you!” He bangs his hand on the table so hard that the cigar box jumps. “I didn’t promise to wait. You just assumed, once again, that I would follow your stupid directions.”

“Stupid? I’ll tell you what’s stupid. Stupid is—” I’m up out of the chair, in his face, before I realize what he’s doing. “Ha. Good try, Kiernan. Make me mad, and maybe I’ll storm off. That way you can claim I left you no choice but to do this on your own.”

A long silence follows, so I’m pretty sure I nailed it. He finally says in a softer voice, “I know I can’t kill him, Kate. I do intend to hurt him, however. And I’ll take great pleasure in it.”

“I get that. But, Kiernan?” I try to think of a way to word it diplomatically but then decide to just be blunt. “You couldn’t hurt anyone right now. You can barely walk. Are you sure it’s not infected?”

“I’m sure. I have antibiotics.”

I glance down at his leg. The jeans seem even tighter around his leg than they were yesterday. Either he’s replaced the bandage with a bulkier one or the leg is swollen, and from the way he’s walking, I’d bet it’s the latter.

“If you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to take a look.”

“I’ll pass,” I say coolly. “But even if it’s not infected, you need time to heal. Do you have food in the house?”

“Campbell’s Soup. Crackers. Pickled eggs. Maybe some ca

“Bleh. What do you want?”

He raises his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t say no to a pizza.”

I’ve discovered two things that make me a little sad about eventually having to give up the CHRONOS key. The first is that I can get pizza almost instantly. You place the order, set a stable point at the front door, jump forward thirty minutes, and scan in sixty-second increments until the delivery guy shows up. One minute and twenty-four seconds from the time I picked up the telephone.

The second is that you can go back five hours, plug in your iPad, and then jump forward to find it fully charged. Same goes for downloading movies.

Of course, none of that outweighs the negatives, but it’s nice to find a silver lining.

Katherine would give me all kinds of grief about bringing Kiernan the iPad. But he’s by himself in the middle of nowhere. And if anyone does show up at the cabin, he’s smart enough to shove the thing under the sofa cushions. I pop back in twice daily to bring supplies and recharge the tablet. In this fashion, six days pass for Kiernan in a little over an hour for me. He makes his way through five books and half the movies I own. I can tell he’s still sore, and I argue that we should wait a few more days, but he’s losing patience.

I make two final jumps before we go. First, it’s back to the townhouse to drop off all forbidden technology and a trash bag filled with various takeout containers. Then I set the key for my room at Katherine’s at 1:00 p.m. this coming Wednesday so that I can pick up the biohazard equipment that Co

I hold them up for Kiernan’s inspection when I jump back to the cabin. “Our chemistry set has arrived.”

He snorts but doesn’t look up from the sketch he’s making. “Fortunately, neither of us will be doing any experiments. I collect the sample, you take it back to Co

“Co